This is what she had to say about the subject of fracking our beautiful and ‘protected’ places (discussed in the video below 4 years ago with Jacob Rees-Mogg – who inadvertently let’s slip that if fracking brings more cash than National Parks – then THAT is a ‘special exemption! )

[Myth #3: Shale gas extraction will industrialise the countryside and our national parks
Fact: There will be no hydraulic fracturing in National Parks. In 2016 we confirmed that shale exploration wells will not be able to be drilled in protected areas. A shale gas site is typically the size of a football pitch. Drilling only takes 4-8 weeks and once the wells are drilled the large equipment is taken away. Wells can be returned to their pre-drilling state in as little as 3 years.

Refracktion Commentary: Where to start with this one? First of all we have another straw man as most people are now aware that fracking companies will not be allowed to drill in “protected areas”. Of course industrialisation is not just drilling and a pad on the edge of a National Park might still require huge numbers of HGVs to trundle though these parks while the pad operator drills beneath the park from a pad sited on its edge.

But then we are told that “A shale gas site is typically the size of a football pitch”. At this point we have to ask where Ms Perry got her “myth buster” from. Was it UKOOG or Cuadrilla? This lie has been exposed more times than I can remember. A football pitch is between 0.62 and 0.82 hectares in size. Cuadrilla’s pad at PNR is 2.6 hectares with a further 7.4 hectares of associated groundworks. Anyone repeating this lie is either incredibly badly informed or deliberately setting out to mislead. We have to ask : “Which of these applies to Ms Perry?”

She then states “Drilling only takes 4-8 weeks and once the wells are drilled the large equipment is taken away.” This duration may be true in production, although drilling 2 wells at Preston New Road has taken around a year. However, what is not stated here is that is if there are 40 wells on a pad and they each take 4-8 weeks to drill then the drilling will go on for 3.5 years to 7 years. That presents a rather less rosy picture doesn’t it. Cuadrilla by the way are on record as saying they may have up to 60 wells per pad so that would be 5 to 10 years. Presumably Ms Perry doesn’t regard arrays of compresser trucks as “large equipment”.

Finally she reassures us “Wells can be returned to their pre-drilling state in as little as 3 years”. If by “pre-drilling state” she means covering the well head with grass while leaving the well full of contaminated flow back fluid then this might indeed be possible. However why a company would do this when a well is expected to produce for 20- 30 years is a bit of a puzzle isn’t it?

In fact the wholesale industrialisation of previously prime agricultural land is one of the key arguments against the proliferation of shale gas developments. This may become especially important as Brexit means the UK economy may have to increasingly rely on home grown food]